Return of the Double Agent: Part Two

Lithely the Zafara stepped away from the dark, cramped space
she had been crouching in and took a good look at the room. Only a few potential
hiding places, nothing more.

Cylene moved on, her mind digesting what the
ladies had been talking about. Jeran... costume... That revered blue knightly
Lupe in some costumes? Well, all that steel had done things to some pets she
knew, so why not?

A small scratchy noise grabbed the Zafara's attention,
and she quickly ran over to the room where it was being made from. Cylene scowled
at the locked door but attempted to peek through the keyhole. After all, she
was a spy.

She did not hear the steps until it was too late.

"What are you doing here?" a crisp, brisk voice
asked. Quickly the Zafara swirled around and put on her charms in case it was
a guard, but it wasn't. A plain yellow Aisha with red-framed glasses stood in
front of her, much more dangerous than any guard.

"Just looking around," Cylene said breezily.
Mentally she reprimanded herself for getting out of practice. She'd better start
practicing if she was going to get somewhere...

"Well, not in my brother's room, I hope," Lisha
said icily.

"Oh no, of course not," the Zafara lied as she
removed herself from the scene.

So that was Jeran's room... Sir Costume-Dress-Up
Jeran's room... Cylene's lips curled into a thin smirk as she thought of the
interesting hours that would follow. But right now she had to get rid of that
Lisha's suspicions...

Whistling an old Meridell tune, Cylene walked
down the hallway once again, trying to straighten her back and look as if she
belonged there, with a four-eyed pet's glance burning into her back.

"I'm watching you, Agent," said Lisha bravely.
"I don't trust you more than that Court Dancer who broke in here during the
last war. You won't slip by me."

"The King trusts me now," answered the Zafara,
stopping in her tracks to face the small Aisha who could cost her Skarl's respect.
"You know I'm on your side."

Jeran's sister fingered her plastic wand. "I
still wouldn't trust you as far as my older brother could throw you. Besides,
what are you doing, loitering around the castle? You should be enjoying yourself
with a good game of Meriball, or maybe parking your behind in the library..."

"Why don't you take a page from your own book
and park yourself in the library?" The words were out of her mouth before Cylene
could control them. "It is not polite to meddle in others' affairs, especially
when they concern those older and smarter and better than you."

Lisha stood adamant on the spot. She didn't dare
move away or take her eyes off the Double Agent. Both of them glared at each
other with utmost hatred.

The creaking of a nearby door intercepted their
confrontation. Both of them whipped around to see a tall blue Lupe standing
before them.

"What's going on?" Jeran asked suspiciously.
He surveyed the Aisha and the Zafara who looked as though they were having a
hot staring contest.

"Nothing, Sir Knight," Cylene replied innocently.
"Please, Lisha, don't let me take up any of your time more than necessary,"
she added and nonchalantly left the place.

"I don't trust her," the Zafara heard the Aisha
mutter from a distance. It did not trouble the Agent too much, and there was
really no way Lisha could snoop around and follow her if she lost face...

Cylene continued to explore some more before
she retreated to the promised, extravagant private suites and took out a quill,
some parchment and a bottle of ink.

After she was done with writing, Cylene left
the room. She couldn't sit here and get moldy... She had a job to do. Steeling
herself, the Zafara steered herself towards the kitchen to have a hasty dinner
before she returned to the oh-so-interesting hallway where that annoying Lisha
had popped up.

* *

After the dinner, the Agent skulked back to the
corridor where she had overheard the ladies' conversation. Her eyes scanned
the walls for the door that led to Jeran's room. Hopefully she could find out
whether those rumors were true or not.

Good thing Lisha is almost always at the library,
or with Jeran, she thought with relief. Her fingers groped for the doorknob
of a door with a Meridell flag dangling from it. Two crossed swords were sewn
onto it. But it wouldn't open.

Remembering an old trick, Cylene dug through
her pocket and found a small rusty hairpin. She had known that the best information
was always concealed behind lock and key. Her hands expertly maneuvered the
unlikely tool through the hole, while she kept watch carefully. There was no
telling who could be walking towards her at any moment.

The door remained closed. Someone's feet were
making soft sounds on the floor. The Zafara resisted the urge to panic as she
went on with her work. Whoever was coming her way was probably still far away.

Unfortunately, the keyhole proved to be quite
a challenge for the tiny hairpin. Cylene began shoving it in deeper and heard
the footsteps get even louder.

Louder and louder they came, until the muffled
click told her that the door was finally open. She pushed it, dove into the
bedroom of one of Meridell's famous knights, and locked herself inside in time.

The Double Agent breathed. That was a close call.
If she had been discovered, King Skarl would chuck her out of the castle as
easily as he could have chucked a pea.

"Typical Lisha," she heard a familiar, deep,
baritone voice mutter as a certain blue Lupe was moving towards the room she
had just placed herself in with a great amount of noise. Cylene quickly scrambled
and hurried around to find a good place to hide. The Zafara knew that she might
be small, but no matter what size, a bad hiding place was a bad... There! A
huge blue wardrobe stood rather aloof in a corner of the room, and quickly Cylene
rushed over and tried her luck.

No way! That secretive little knight... The Agent's
mind reeled with the horror of someone locking their own closet as she looked
around for another hiding place. She heard some scratchy noises and the clanking
of keys, quite an obtrusive warning. In the last second imaginable, Cylene jumped
into the first corner she could find, behind a huge, odd, pink-colored, heart-formed
bunch of flowers.

Gritting her teeth in grim distaste, the Zafara
did not use her eyes but listened as Jeran entered his room. Then she realized
something. It was way too good... Why would a knight have a weird flower like
that in the room? Why would he lock his own closet? Of course, unless he had
any skeletons to hide...

Still having some decency left, Cylene refrained
from looking as Meridell's greatest knight removed his armor. She heard some
scratchy noises again. That was really getting annoying, and having not prepared
properly, the Zafara was more jumpy than ever.

Deciding that she was done with her moralistic
duties, the Double Agent opened her eyes and stared into another pair of yellow,
staring eyes that seemed to spurt from the flower. Suppressing a surprised gasp,
Cylene carefully bent the leaf into an angle in which she could easily view
Jeran.

The Agent was very thankful for choosing another
hiding place, for if she had hesitated one moment longer near his closet, Jeran
would have seen her in his room, in the flesh. In a couple of minutes, he was
clad in regular clothes like some normal Meridellian.

THIS was the big costume? The blue Zafara decided
to linger a bit longer. Perhaps he was just going to wear something underneath
whatever he was going to pose as for this Halloween.

Cylene watched him leaf through something in
the cabinet. At last, he extracted something large and lumpy with a satisfied
smile on his face.

"This ought to make up for the time I accidentally
chopped one of her books' pages by mistake," said the Lupe aloud, thinking that
nobody was eavesdropping. "Ah, here we go."

Stifling a laugh, the spy shifted in her place
as her feet began to feel numb. Her eyes had met one of the most curious, amusing
sights she had ever seen in her life and she had front seats for the action.

Jeran was dressed in a terribly-sewn costume
that made him look like a Weewoo. Stiff tail feathers stuck out from his back,
while his arms were stuffed into large wings that he flapped to add a little
effect as he admired himself in front of the full-length mirror in his room.

The Zafara bit her lip for the third time to
keep from giggling. At first she thought something escaped her, but the knight
seemed too preoccupied with his crazy pleasures to find out whether anyone was
looking. A tad too confident, like you always were, Sir Jeran, thought
Cylene.

She was just about to shake her head amusedly
when she heard a few trembling notes fill the chamber, and quickly the Zafara
sat up straight and watched the oh-so-great knight intently. With eyes as huge
as gormballs, Cylene sat there and listened to an apparently rather white Weewoo
sing the pirate hymn, rather off-key.

The Agent suppressed a few more giggles and she
rather artistically etched this image into one of the deeper parts of her mind.
Who would've imagined, Sir Jeran extraordinaire, doing something like this?

Hearing the Lupe's footsteps, the Zafara stopped
the unconscious rocking of her body that she had accidentally been doing and
turned stiff. But there was no apparent danger as the knight once again dove
into his closet to fish out something suspiciously pink.

Gasping like a fish on dry land, Cylene watched
as the knight tried to pull off the weird white costume and put on the pink
one. She had to admit that the cute eyes were nice, but as for the rest of it...

Sir Jeran had successfully transformed into a
Neopet-sized Meepit with a huge scar (or rather, the zipper) on its back. I
knew I shouldn't have relied on those petpets for the messages, the Zafara
thought, shuddering.

"This is too much!" she exclaimed to herself.
Whipping out a tiny notebook and magical self-inking quill from her pocket,
she began noting something down. Cylene paused every now and then to make sure
that the Lupe did not hear the scratching on paper.

"Sir Jeran of Meridell - Dresses up in petpet
costumes for kicks. Probably for impressing or repaying Lisha. Quite a shock
to see one of the greatest heroes actually performing such follies out of the
sight of King Skarl..."

The notes finally recorded, the agent thought
it best to leave. There could be more secrets to reveal, hidden things to discover.
She crept towards the door of the bedroom, but much to her dismay, she had to
find a way to turn the knob without drawing too much attention to herself.

Knowing that risks sometimes had to be taken,
Cylene groped for it and twisted the doorknob as noiselessly as possible. Thankfully
Jeran was immersed in a stupid monologue to even care that someone had snuck
into his domain and was about to sneak out as well.

"Ah yes...dance for you I shall!"

And that was the last of the knight that she
heard. She was alone again in the corridor, eternally grateful that nobody saw
her bust out of Jeran's place.